LinkedIn Mobile Apps Get Makeover

LinkedIn's mobile apps are the latest to get a facelift following Apple's iOS 7 update. The professional social network announced several new features and functionalities this week, with some available for Android, too.

LinkedIn's most noticeable change is the design improvement for iOS 7. Other social networks, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, have already tweaked their look to fit with the iOS 7 update. LinkedIn described its design as flatter and cleaner with "sharp edges and soft colors to emphasize news, updates and insights […] to help you quickly consume the information you're after."

In both the iOS 7 and new Android version, LinkedIn's news reader app, Pulse, got new features. The improvements include news updates and swiping gestures to move between articles, the company said.

Another new feature both mobile apps got: Endorsements. Previously available only on the Web, Endorsements let you vote up a connection's skill set and suggest new skills for the user to add to his profile. LinkedIn users can both accept endorsements and give them out using its Android or iOS app. The professional social network introduced Endorsements a year ago, and in March reported that users have doled out more than 1 billion of them.

"Endorsements give you a quick way to find someone's top talents based on skills their connections have endorsed," said Duncan Osborn, who works with the mobile product team at LinkedIn. "With endorsements on mobile, you can keep your professional reputation fresh by accepting endorsements from your connections and by adding skills to your profile. In addition, you can recognize your connections for being awesome at what they do by endorsing them from your phone."

Finally, LinkedIn also introduced a guide to help bring new mobile app users up to speed on the platform. If you haven't used LinkedIn's mobile app before, the social network will take you through a step-by-step guide the first time you log on to help you build your network, join groups, follow companies and more.

These updates are the latest in a handful of new mobile features that LinkedIn has launched lately. In August, the professional social network announced that iOS and Android users could not only search for jobs using its mobile apps, but apply for them, too, directly from their mobile phone.

To get the latest versions of LinkedIn's mobile apps, visit the iTunes store for the iOS version or the Google Play store for the Android version.

I agree w/ David Carr. Endorsements is a hugely artificial way to add data elements to someone's profile, and one of the more disingenuous tools LinkedIn has created. Hope the rest of the new LinkedIn mobile version works better than what I experience currently. The mobile experience is pretty poor.